Ecological Footprint Essay

They predict that by 2100 sea levels will have risen an average of about 10 to 23 inches (nrdc.org). Between the months of January and March of 2002, a piece of the Larsen B shelf in Antarctica collapsed. The Piece of the ice shelf was the size of Rhode Island, scientist found this surprising and alarming because it just proves that global warming is really affecting us even if we can’t see it happening. There are many contributing factors in what is really causing global warming. Scientist believe that the number one cause of global warming is humans.

· Cooling Poles Recently, scientists found that temperatures in the Arctic have been cooling since the 1920s. Computer predictions are that, if the world is warming, the Poles should warm twice as much. · Disappearing Glaciers Ice is melting all over the planet. Glaciers are melting on six continents. If present warming trends continue, all glaciers in Glacier National Park could be gone by 2030.

These are just a few of the causes of climate change. A force so powerful, it will take decades to reverse its scar on the ocean. This reaction to environmental change has never been seen before on earth at this heart-breaking pace or scale. Climate change is devastatingly altering the lives of many ocean creatures. According to Webster’s dictionary, “climate change is the change in global climate patterns apparent from the mid-to-late 20th century and onwards attributed largely to the increased levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide produced by the use of fossil fuel.” There is stronger evidence now than there has been in the past 50 years that climate change is actually a fact.

The second is cars and other fossil fuel burning vehicles, which cause around 1.7 billion tons of CO2 each year. To get rid of this dangerous climate change would require deep cuts in

One main reason for the problem of global warming is the burning of fossil fuels. Fossil fuels are coal, oil and natural gases. We use these fuels to run factories, power plants, cars, trucks, buses, air conditioning and etc. The people of the earth are putting 5.5 billion tons of carbon, in the form of carbon dioxide in the air every year! Seventy five percent of this is fossil fuels.

Global warming has been one of the leading environmental issues for the past several years. Global warming is when an excess of certain gasses are produced and trap the sun’s heat in the atmosphere. One of the most abundant of these gasses is carbon dioxide. It is released when fossil fuels and other things are burned for their energy. The average American family of 2 will produce 41,500 pounds of carbon dioxide per year.

Like I explained earlier, carbon dioxide in the Earth has increased dramatically and this is cause by burning fossil fuels which results in the Greenhouse Effect. Almost everything in the world consists of fossil fuels in some type of way. We burn fossil fuels when driving our car, powering machinery, using electricity, flying planes, etc. (Planet Save) I thought that the following chart was very interesting because it explains that the human causes of global warming are extremely higher than natural effects. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, this dec... ... middle of paper ... ...are efforts to slow down the rate of global warming that are being implemented.

Earlier it was believed that shifts in the climate pattern from ice age to warmer periods was because of time however later it was imagined that it is due to regular melting of ice sheets of more than a kilometer in thickness. Our climate is getting warm rapidly by the rate of approximately 8°C over the course of 10 years. A huge industrial revolution in the modern time has largely impacted the global cli... ... middle of paper ... ...onsumption of fossil fuel has increased dramatically. The world now burns at least five billion tons of fossil fuel each year. As this carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels enters the atmosphere, some of it is taken up by photosynthesizing plants, and the oceans absorb some.

It is predicted that the effect of permafrost melting will be that the ocean levels will rise and will significantly increase the temperature and accelerate the rate at which global warming occurs. Permafrost covers 24% of the land in the Northern Hemisphere (Insert Citation), if this was to melt 1700 gigatonnes of methane and carbon dioxide (Insert Citation), powerful heat trapping gases, would be released into the atmosphere increasing the amount of greenhouse gases by 200%. Permafrost is permanently frozen soil which hasn’t melted in 2 years or more, it also makes up 24% of the land in the Northern Hemisphere and it stores massive amounts of carbon inside of it (Insert Citation). Permafrost contains large amounts of frozen organic matter and if this organic matter thaws out and starts to decay it will release carbon into the air. As a result of global warming and climate change, permafrost is at risk of melting, releasing the carbon trapped inside, it has been estimated that the permafrost contains 1700 gigatonnes of carbon inside of it (Insert Citation), which is double the amount of carbon in the atmosphere already and there is no way to stop the permafrost melting besides slowing it down by reducing our emissions.

But when looking through the eyes of humans, these changes are drastic causing ice ages, draughts, and rain for years (Goldstein 6). During the last century carbon dioxides levels in the atmosphere have become significantly larger than they ever have in the past 800,000 years. Today these levels are at 390 ppm and show no signs of stopping which will cause temperatures to rise because carbon is a greenhouse gas. When a greenhouse gas, such as carbon dioxide or water vapor are present in the atmosphere, they absorb the heat that the Earth is giving off, creating a thermal blanket over Earth trapping in heat (Houghton 20). Now that the problem has been identified, determining the source the problem becomes much easier.